'You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.' Sunday Reflections, 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Columban Fr Aedan McGrath speaking about his time in solitary confinement in China, 1950-53

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)                                  

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Luke 14:1, 7-14 (Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition)

One sabbath when Jesus went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him. 

Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he marked how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, "When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give place to this man,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, 'Friend, go up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." He said also to the man who had invited him, "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just." 

Altar used at all Legion of Mary meetings

I remember the homecoming of Fr Aedan McGrath from China to Ireland in 1953 when I was ten. It was front-page news and there was a photograph on the now defunct Irish Press of the President and Prime Minister of Ireland greeting him along with thousands of others at Dublin Airport, much smaller than it is now.

Father Aedan had been imprisoned by the authorities of the People's Republic of China who had come into power in 1949 for his work with the Legion of Mary. He spent nearly three years in solitary confinement.

I had no idea in 1953 that one day I would be a Columban missionary priest like him and that he would become a good friend. I was also to discover that we both spent our early years in Holy Family Parish, Aughrim St, Dublin.

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